Today, he was home, and we were equally glad to see one another, catch up.

I think he told me over twenty times I was part of their family, like his daughter (sometimes his memory failing him and age playing tricks he’d say I was like his sister. Miriam was quick to correct on my age, but likewise generous in such comments).

Today he spoke of the massage therapy he’s getting on one of his legs (he’d fallen a while ago and fractured the leg). He also spoke of how he’d like to leave Gaza for surgery on his left eye, but that the Israeli authorities imprisoning Gazans keep denying him permission to leave, despite his doctor’s notes.

He is absolutely not supposed to walk too much, climb anything, do too much work. Because of his poor eyesight –only having the use of one age-affected eye –he also has to worry about the surface on which he walks: stumbling over an unseen obstacle could set him back in a cast and immobile.

Yet maybe a month ago, from a taxi, I saw Mohammed, out on the street, collecting something for re-sale, still trying to work, despite his injury, the pain. He is one Gaza’s many citizens against the siege: defying the Israeli-Egyptian lock-down of borders and shut-down of Gaza’s economy by scraping by on determination.

International Journalism Award From Mexican Press Club March 2017

about me

Eva Bartlett is an independent writer and rights activist with extensive experience in Syria and in the Gaza Strip, where she lived a cumulative three years (from late 2008 to early 2013). She documented the 2008/9 and 2012 Israeli war crimes and attacks on Gaza while riding in ambulances and reporting from hospitals.
Since April 2014, she has visited Syria 7 times, including two months in summer 2016 and one month in Oct/Nov 2016 and her latest visit in June 2017 (to Aleppo, Homs, al-Waer, Madaya, al-Tall, Damascus).
Her early visits included interviewing residents of the Old City of Homs, which had just been secured from militants, and visiting historic Maaloula after the Aramaic village had been liberated of militants. In December 2015, Eva returned to old Homs to find life returning, small shops opened, some of the damaged historic churches holding worship anew, and citizens preparing to celebrate Christmas once again.
On her 5th visit in June-August 2016, she went twice to Aleppo, also visiting Palmyra, Masyaf, Jableh, Tartous, and Barzeh district of Damascus, as well as returning again to Maaloula and Latakia.
On her sixth visit to Syria, in October and November, she visited Aleppo twice more, as well as areas around Damascus. The testimonies Eva gathered in Aleppo starkly contrasted narratives corporate media had been asserting.
Many of her published Syria writings, videos, photos can be found at this link:
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/